(Read on; this title will make sense shortly, I promise.) I must admit, I’m a huge geek when it comes to manga. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, manga (mahn-gah) is the Japanese word for “cartoon,” but here in America it is more specifically associated with comic books from Japan. Americans commonly think only of big-eyed, cute manga girls, but it really ranges to every genre imaginable and some are quite sophisticated and complex. But as much as I love manga, it certainly isn’t the leading force in promoting strong, realistic women. Instead I’m often assaulted by the usual flimsy, submissive girl-next-door types, damsels, and sex kittens, all of which make me cringe in unbelievable frustration. All is not lost however. In manga and other medias of fiction characters are being pushed outside the cheap, crammed little box that is stereotyping and stronger female characters are popping up like refreshing daisies after a long winter.
Unfortunately, some of these characters start at hopeful buds and, as you will see in this article, bloom into…big boobs.
Recently, I’ve been running into female characters in manga that have all the potential to act as the powerful, admirable characters only to fall victim to heavy sexualization. Literally. These female characters are presented as tough, reliable in a pinch, commanding and are even, in cases, in very powerful positions in the story…and have breasts the size of melons on bodies as toned as Barbie‘s. Like over-sized, fleshy badges of power (that only undermine respect), these massive chests are worn proudly and openly and as often as possible. These are what I like to call “power boobs.”
Tsunade lounges in the background. Does that image say “respectable leader?”
Tsunade proudly shows off her power boobs.
Take Lady Tsunade from a well-known manga by the name of Naruto. In a world of ninja, she’s extremely powerful physically, one of the most skilled and knowledgeable in medicine, and acts as the leader of what is essentially a large, bustling community. She is also one of three of the most famous ninja in this fictional world and the only woman of the three. That is certainly a profile worthy of what I’d consider a type of strong female character. But she is also equipped with a chest that could give even Barbie a run for her money! They hang disproportionate and exposed for all eyes to see and see them we do (although at least the artist applied gravity). I looked up some statics on what Tsunade’s chest measurement would be and, although I never got an official source myself, the recurring number was 41.7 inches. To put that number into perspective, Barbie‘s notorious monsters would supposedly be a whooping 39 inch chest, an FF bra size. Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a new queen of topple-you-over boobs! Tsunade must be physically strong to hold up that amount of weight!
The skill it must take to wear that shirt all day without mishaps.
It is not that Tsunade has a big chest that bothers me per say. It is the body these mammoth-sized melons are on, a body that would never naturally have such a large chest. The result is awkward. Also, although it would be impossible to mask the unrealistic size, that fact is only accentuated by a shirt that acts more like a sling for Tsunade’s weighty luggage. This makes her acceptable to the masses that may not accept a realistic, strong woman and makes Tsunade just another woman with big breasts among the many in manga, certainly not a threat that pushes the limits of society.
Not only are people going to be unavoidably drawn to her busting bosom, but Tsunade is actually a 50-some-year-old woman who, through the use of what is basically magic, keeps the appearance of a 20-year-old. There are occasions when this magic wears off, however, and each and every time this occurs, Tsunade’s face is conveniently blocked from view so as not to ruin the beautiful voluptuous 20-year-old image that the readers are used to seeing. Now does that say she is to be known as a powerful woman or a sex object?
Tsunade when she really was in her 20s. Note that she’s not nearly as sexualized then (before she was a main character).
This is the animated version of Tsunade. Though she’s just as busty, her shirt does have slightly more coverage.
Don’t get me wrong; I am actually an avid reader of Naruto which I do believe has some fairly strong females (a couple of which are older women). And while I do have my beefs with what I feel are female characters that have all the potential to reach great heights only to be frustratingly held back, I do recognize at least an effort to introduce stronger female characters. I would also like to point out it’s not just manga that falls into this trap. Tons of top-heavy, stick thin female superheroes litter comics from Marvel and other American comics. It’s like women can’t have the power if they don’t have the boobs to match, as if the bigger the breasts, the bigger the amount of power or strength they are “allowed” because as long as these female characters are presented as sex objects, society will accept it. “Power boobs” are the literal embodiment of this weighting down of strong female characters and though many boys drooling over these page fillers may disagree, there are far too many female characters with “power boobs.”
(Stay tuned for more installments of strong female characters weighted down by heavy cleavage! I have a feeling it’ll be hard to miss.)
Gagging on Sexism 
It’s like women can’t have the power if they don’t have the boobs to match, as if the bigger the breasts, the bigger the amount of power or strength they are “allowed” because as long as these female characters are presented as sex objects, society will accept it.>
I never quite thought of it this way before, but in the light of the above statement, it’s clearly no accident that the most notoriously big-bosomed heroines in the DC universe are Power Girl (an alternate-universe version of Supergirl) and Wonder Woman, who are probably also the two most physically powerful female characters DC has.
Yes, it’s really sad that we even have to think about connections between a female character’s physical appearance and the amount of power she’s given, but hopefully, the more of us who see it, the less accepted it will be.
Hm… another perspective could be that a powerful woman can actually be very sexy. Usually men are scared of powerful women or trash them as un-sexy in real life. And well… shounen manga do address to men who like big things in general.
It’s not that I like huge boobs, but I think that although your point is valid as well, you can’t really judge a fantasy, because that’s what it is: a fantasy. The same goes with yaoi phantasies women have. Objectification is a human need and if it doesn’t seep into reality, things aren’t that bad. The biggest problem doesn’t lie necessarily in the art rather than the education and dialogue children/teens have with their parents. It’s all about respect in the end and keeping the guilty pleasures in the dream realm.
Nice post and a good remark 🙂
Thanks for commenting! It’s a difficult issue trying to figure out how to view fiction and if it’s harmful or not which is why I think your comment about education and discussion is very important. Not only is it something to talk about with kids and teens but people in general. That’s one of the things I try to do on this blog–start conversations and discussions.
First off – this is a really great blog!
What annoys me about Naruto (my favorite fandom ever) is how underpowered the females are. “Two Girls one Guy” is very prominent in this series. I wrote something about this a while back:
Genin (low-ranking ninjas) are put in three-man cells under one jounin (elite ninja) sensei. So far, nearly single team of any significance has been composed of two boys and one girl, under one Jounin instructor, for a total of four people. The only team with more female than male students so far is Team Samui (/Bee), which is made up of one boy and two girls under one instructor. There have been teams comprised of all boys, however, such as with Hayate Gekko’s genin team and the previous generation of Ino-Shika-Cho.
The other teams? Let’s see…
Team Ebisu: Konohamaru Sarutobi (male), Udon (male), Moegi (female)
Team Minato: Hatake Kakashi (male), Obito Uchiha (male), Rin Nohara (female)
Team Dosu (/Orochimaru): Dosu Kinuta (male), Kin Tsuchi (female)
Team Baki: Gaara (male), Kankuro (male), Temari (female)
We can’t forget the most important team of the series, Team Kakashi, comprised of titular character Naruto Uzumaki (male), Sasuke Uchiha (male), and Sakura Haruno (female)
Team Kakashi is part of the Konoha 11, the collective nickname of four genin teams of the ninja village Konoha, minus Sasuke Uchiha, who is currently ex-Team Kakashi and has defected from Konoha.
The Konoha 11 also includes Team Gai, made up of Rock Lee (male), Neji Hyuga (male), and Tenten (female); Team Asuma, made up of Shikamaru Nara (male), Choji Akimichi (male), and Ino Yamanaka (female); and Team Kurenai, made up of Shino Aburame (male), Kiba Inuzuka (male), and Hinata Hyuga (female).
It is apparent to any devoted fan of Naruto that the females are almost always the weakest characters in their teams. Sakura Haruno, one of the most prominent characters, is frequently criticized as useless (or even worse than), a claim that is often correct. It’s true that she healed Naruto after he fought with Sasuke at the Kage Summit, but Naruto would not have needed healing if he hadn’t been busy saving her after she foolishly put herself in a situation she knew she couldn’t handle after several tried to stop her.
Rin Nohara’s death would eventually cause a world war. Her talented teammate Hatake Kakashi protected her, and her other teammate, Obito Uchiha’s, ambition was to become strong so he could protect her also. The question remains: why couldn’t Rin protect herself?
After Sasuke Uchiha’s defection, the emergency-response Sasuke Retrieval Team formed and was sent after him to bring him back. Interestingly, this team, comprised of Shikamaru Nara, Naruto Uzumaki, Choji Akimichi, Neji Hyuga, and Kiba Inuzuka, included every available male member of the Konoha 11 (Shino Aburame was away on another mission and Rock Lee was recovering in the hospital), but not a single female.
I can literally count the amount of Naruto females who have proven themselves in battle (as in, winning against a major character, and actual on-screen fighting, not reputation, which is why I’m not including people such as Ameyuri Ringo, formerly of the Seven Swordsmen, Mikoto Uchiha, who was a Jonin and had to be good to marry the head of the Uchiha clan, but who we’ve only seen in the kitchen, and Yugito Nii, who was the host of the Two-Tails but we’ve never seen her win an on-screen battle, or Shizune, who is a talented healer but not the best combat-type) on two hands. Tsunade, Konan, Temari, Tayuya, Chiyo, Mei Terumi.
However, I feel compelled to note that Naruto really has more male fanservice geared towards female fans than female fanservice geared towards male readers. In the Third Databook polls, females actually made up the majority of respondents, so I have reason to think that females make up more of the fandom or at least are the more dedicated fans, on average. Sasuke Uchiha’s shirt comes off in every other battle and there are all these weird shots in the anime openings where he isn’t wearing anything.
Thanks for breaking all of that down! I can tell you’ve written about this before. You’ve touched on something I’ve noticed myself. The two guys, one girl team up seems to be a common trend in shonen manga, although it’s most prominent in Naruto given the set up of the story and all the teams in it. As a result, there are a decent amount of female characters if you simply compare it to other shonen manga, but because the number of male characters completely overwhelm the female ones in Naruto, not to mention almost all (if not all) the female characters are weaker than the males, they end up feeling kind of like token characters to me. Like, this story needs female characters so, let’s add one weak girl to a number of the teams and call it even.
As for who makes up the majority of the fandom, that’s interesting that the majority of respondents for polls were females. While the women are more stereotyped and the female leaders like Tsunade and Mei Terumi are particularly sexualized, it’s true that plain old fanservice geared toward male readers doesn’t seem as rampant in this series, especially compared to other shonen series like Bleach.
Yeah – there’s actually a ton of fanservice geared towards female fans (I think females, on average, are slightly more “rabid” as fans than males, as can be seen from stuff like official polls).
As much as I love Naruto, though, I still think females could play a better part. When the character of Deidara was introduced, I was super-pumped – here was this exciting, prominent, and very, very capable and powerful girl owning the Kazekage! So cool!
Then, shortly before his death, Deidara took off his shirt – and THOSE PECS DID NOT, NOT, NOT BELONG TO A GIRL.
A huge amount of people were confused by the character of Deidara. And here’s the thing – is it really that difficult to up the number of females in the super-elite Akatsuki to a whopping TWO? Deidara already looked so much like a girl, so many thought he was a girl, it shouldn’t be that hard to make this great character a girl.
You might like the character of Quorra from TRON: Legacy. First of all, she totally kicks ass with a body that actually exists on real people. Second of all, while she wears a tight bodysuit, all the men wear suits just as tight, even old men like Clu!
I definitely agree that there are many female characters in Naruto that are weaker than their teammates, however in Sakura’s defense, she is much stronger than many other capable fighters. The reason that she is often useless is that she happened to be put on the same team as the hero and his rival. In the other teams, however, the power levels go something like this: (these are just my guesses, feel free to disagree)
Team Asuma: Shikamaru (strongest), Ino, Choji (tied with Ino)
Team Kurenai: Kiba, Hinata, Shino (all three tied)
Team Gai: Lee (almost tied with Neji), Neji (strongest), Tenten (weakest)
Team Dosu: Dosu (strongest), Kin (weakest), Zaku
Team Baki: Gaara (strongest), Temari (second strongest?), Kankuro
Team Minato: Kakashi, Obito, Rin (definitely weakest)
Team Sarutobi: Orochimaru, Jiraya, Tsunade (all three tied)
Team Kakashi: Sasuke (tied with Naruto), Naruto, Sakura (weakest)
In the above eight teams, two of them have the female characters tied for strongest, four have their female characters as the weakest, one has their female character in the middle, and the other has the female character tied for weakest. None of them have their female character as the definite strongest. A third of the people here are female, yet all the strongest characters are male. (Only one of the teachers is female though)
Also, I have always found Rin to be a notably weak character, firstly due to her inability to protect herself, and secondly, her willingness to let her teammates die while she escapes.
When Obito was half crushed under a rock, instead of getting the rock off of him (difficult), or trying to fight off enemies until he could be rescued, she ran away with Kakashi, and left him to die.
Thankfully, Rin’s complete inability to protect herself and her teammates (or even worse, her unwillingness to try), seems to be exclusive to her. In non of the other teams do two male characters feel the need to protect there female teammates; they’re all at least able to protect themselves.
Although Sakura has needed to be rescued at least once in the manga (from Gaara), it was from a very powerful opponent who could only be defeated by the hero. All the female characters (except Rin) have demonstrated that they are willing to put themselves in extreme danger in order to protect their friends.
Naruto definitely has a problem with it’s number of female characters and their power levels, however these female characters are mostly useful team members and allies.
Take in the chunin exams, when Sasuke and Naruto were knocked out, and attacked by the sound ninja. Sakura had to fight all three sound ninja at once, or her teammates would be killed. Ultimately, she became badly injured and Rock Lee ended up fighting the sound three, however he was also defeated. Then, Ino and her team stepped in to fight the sound three. When team Ino was also losing, Sasuke finally woke up with his curse mark activated, got mad at the sound three for injuring Sakura, and beat them up.
Basically, what happened here was that a female character tried to protect two male characters, and failed. A male character stepped in and tried to protect the female character, and also failed. Then, two male characters and a female character tried to protect everyone else and were in the process of failing when a male character stepped in and saved the day.
Although the female characters did fail to protect their companions, it was not because they were female; the male characters also failed in the same situation. It took one of the strongest characters in the group (with a power up) to defeat the enemy. Also, the time that the other characters spent defending their unconscious companions gave Sasuke enough time to recover and defeat the sound three. The main problem that I had with the above scenario was that Sasuke was really mad that the sound three had beat up Sakura (I mean, she’s his friend, but he would not have been nearly as mad if Naruto was the person who was beat up).
There are naturally breasted women who have breasts around that large while not being obese. I knew 2 and was aware of others in high school and noticed more in college. I don’t know why people from certain areas seem to consider these women impossible. Unlikely, sure, but they exist. They are definitely disproportionately represented in manga and anime though due to the fixation on “Well, this is a female character, so we should probably make them sexy in an unlikely and conventional way”
You have some good points but this article feels incomplete and a bit slut-shamey. It is probably true that the sexualization involved lessens the gender-boundary-breaking impact of powerful females such as tsunade though. But I find the notes about tsunade’s breast size being so impossible and complaints about her clothes to be incomplete in a significantly problematic page. Your website is still fantastic, however.
Thanks for commenting! If my post came off as “slut slamming” then I indeed left something out in my writing. That’s the last thing I want to do. To clarify, how real people look or dress is a thing of personal expression and choice, and “slut slamming” is something to be condemned. The problem lays in the fact that Tsunade is one of many female manga and comic characters that share some key traits (i.e., overtly sexualized appearance and power) and that people purposely and continuously design so many powerful female characters in that way. It’s also a problem that the manga/comics/films repeatedly make those female characters’ body a focal point as fan service. Therefore, the problem is this trend I’ve seen of cartoonists (and character designs/writers for movies) repeatedly objectifying powerful women. If there were more powerful female characters presented differently, it wouldn’t be an issue. It seems my presentation of the issue got in the way, but I do feel we consumers need to ask serious questions about this frequently used character design/presentation.
Sakura is notably flat and yet incredibly powerful- I don’t watch Shippuden, but I heard she’s surpassed Tsunade in strength and medical ninjutsu. As for Tsunade herself, I don’t think the point of her appearance was to over-sexualize her- but more was a testament to the fact that you don’t have to look manly to be powerful as a woman. I mean, I love her- Orochimaru himself had to seek her out to heal him because she was renowned to be the best medical ninja in the Naruto universe. Kabuto (a male) was also a medical ninja, but Orochimaru still went to find Tsunade. Everyone is pretty much terrified of her strength and temper. I think how she dresses and her general appearance is also a reflection on her personality- characters like her and Ino are more flashy, while Sakura and Hinata are more withdrawn.
For the most part, I think Naruto isn’t unfair in how it portrays its characters, and I don’t believe the artist is sexist in any way, evidenced best by Tayuya kicking Shikamaru’s ass- and Temari having to come save him after all his crap about women and men. Kurenai (at least in Part 1) is the top genjutsu user in the village. Another instance was when Neji scoffed at Sakura and Ino fighting (as kunoichi) in the Chunnin exams and Tenten snapped back at him that they weren’t terrible because they’re girls- they were terrible because they were lukewarm. The main thing about this manga is that since it’s a shonen manga, the target demographic consists of boys. Naruto’s main characters are made to be easily relatable to boys (which explains the majority of boy characters over girls), but this is parallel to mangas like Sailor Moon, which exercises the same concept but for girls rather than boys. Overall, I’ve come to the conclusion that Naruto isn’t sexist. Some of the girls may not be as powerful as the guys, but it’s not a limitation based on gender. If anyone (like Shikamaru or Neji) makes a derogatory comment about girls, someone usually has a rebuttal.
1. If the purpose wasn’t to oversexualize Tsunade, then why are breasts nearly hanging out of her outfit?
2. He could have put her in an outfit that covered her breasts, but decided to put her in an outfit which her breasts–in reality–would fall out of in a fight. Gravity works.
3. He didn’t have to give Tsunade huge breasts to show that she is indeed a female who is just as powerful, if not more, than a man. Breasts are not what make up a woman.
4. A woman’s breast size does not decide if she will be strong willed, independent, self-respecting and assertive. It is the woman, herself, who decides to be strong willed, independent, self-respecting and assertive.
Also, a female character who has a lot of physical strength ≠ not sexist.
I swear, people into anime need to look up what sexism and feminism mean. They think an anime isn’t sexist/antifeminist if there are female characters who can kick ass. There is so much more to feminism and not being sexist than just physical strength.